SXSW 2006 interactive overview

As I mentioned yesterday, sxsw interactive is over. It was a very informative event for me. Some of the highlights included Craig Newmark being interviewed by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia. I also enjoyed the “designing for community with ‘zero-advertising’ brands” discussion that was mediated by Margaret Mason (mightygirl.net) and panelist from skinnycorp (Jacob Dehart, Jeffery Kalmikoff and Jake Nickell). The guys from skinnycorp were funny. They totally reminded me of the higher ups from some of the skateboard brands that I worked with when I was at skateboard.com. They were all about the creation of the products and less about the business of it. Skinnycorp has quadrupled their business every year and are getting ready to move into a new 35k sqf space. No VC funding, profitable and self-financing their other projects like, extratasty.com and 15megsoffame.com. Keep a look out for these guys. Another panel discussion that I enjoyed was “designing the next generation of web apps” with Evan Williams (odeo.com), Mena Trott (sixapart), Jeff Veen (Adapative Path/Yahoo), Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen Design) and George Oates (flickr).

Overall, a very good event. The sxsw staff did a great job and everything went off without a hitch. Now, bring on the music.

technorati tags: austin, sxsw2006, flickr, odeo, skinnycorp, sixapart